This book is a sequel to The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart and technically you may not need to read the first book first, but I think you’ll enjoy this one more if you do and you’ll better understand what’s going on.

In the first book, the young dragon Aventurine was turned into a human girl who learned that she loved chocolate and making chocolate. This book features Aventurine’s friend Silke, a fast talker who lives by the river, running a stall with her brother. Now Silke works in the chocolate shop with Aventurine as a waitress and publicist.

In this book, we learn more about Silke’s background and how she lost her parents six years ago when they were refugees and went through the land where the fairies live underground.

Now the fairies are coming to the city of Drachenburg. They invited themselves as a delegation to talk with the crown princess. The crown princess isn’t sure what they’re up to – and asks Silke to infiltrate the palace talks and act as a spy to learn why the fairies are really there. Since that fits perfectly with Silke’s desire to learn what happened to her parents, she quickly agrees.

Silke thinks being a spy will be easy for a storyteller like her. But right away things don’t go according to plan. And the fairies’ intentions are quickly revealed to be sinister indeed.

This book has adventure, magic, and spying. The story isn’t as simple as the first book (in which a dragon becomes a human girl and hijinks ensue), but it ends up being a fun yarn. And like the first book, I was compelled to eat some chocolate along with my reading.